Category Archives: Sexuality and Gender

LGBQ teens face serious suicide risk, research finds

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LGBQ teens are more vulnerable to planning or attempting suicide, according to a research letterpublished Tuesday in the journal JAMA.

2015 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey in the US, researchers found that 40% of high school students who are considered sexual minorities — who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual or questioning, meaning they are unsure of their orientation — were seriously considering suicide.
Transgender teens were not included in the US government’s survey, but research has shown that transgender youth may face a similarly high, if not higher, suicide risk.

Source- CNN

On the Feast of All Saints, We Honour Our Queer Saints.

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For All Saints Day, Nov 1st, New Ways Ministry describes why LGBT Catholics should remember our queer saints.

On this Feast Day of All Saints, Roman Catholics celebrate the lives of all saints, both known and unknown within our Tradition. This includes the queer saints!

But we should stop and ask ourselves, “Were there really LGBT saints in the history of the Catholic Church?” The short answer: perhaps, but we must be careful of our use of the terms “queer” or “LGBT” in historical analyses. Theologians across the board would likely say that to call any saint from the 1st century to the 19th century “queer” or “LGBT” would be an anachronism. However, we cannot deny the historical evidence of homoerotic language and behavior of saints throughout history.

The Advocate compiled a list of 30 saints from Catholic history that have been considered, for one reason or another, to be LGBT. Some of the names listed are quite familiar, like Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, and others are less well known. For example, Saints Perpetua and Felicity are often said to have been in a very intimate relationship, if not a lesbian partnership.

For a more extensive listing of queer saints and martyrs in Christian and pre-Christian history, see “Queer Saints, Sinners and Martyrs“

Related Posts (at Queer Saints, Sinners and Martyrs)

Scottish bishop defends same-sex marriage: ‘love means love’ | World news | The Guardian

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The Scottish Episcopal church has responded defiantly to de facto sanctions imposed on it by the global Anglican communion over its decision to allow same-sex marriages, saying “love means love”.

Responding to the move, Mark Strange, the bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness and primus of the Scottish Episcopal church, said he recognised that the decision to allow same-sex marriage was “one that has caused some hurt and anger in parts of the Anglican communion”.

Kick-starting a new Catholic conversation | National Catholic Reporter

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The sorry state of the Catholic conversation about same-sex love prompts us to make a constructive proposal. If we have any hope of moving the discussion in a justice-seeking direction, we need a new approach to the problems of homohatred and heterosexism that begins not with church teaching but with real people’s lives. Rehashing old arguments on the morality of sexual activity, about which there is substantial and deeply hurtful disagreement, is useless.

It is time to listen to the experiences and expertise of people who speak with integrity rather than authority.

We are Catholic lesbian/queer women who enjoy our sexuality and rejoice in our relationships. We love out loud. It is time to listen to the experiences and expertise of people who speak with integrity rather than authority, whose lives are not circumscribed by clericalism, people who are free to be honest and transparent.

Source: Kick-starting a new Catholic conversation | National Catholic Reporter

The church needs to work more closely with its LGBT members | USCatholic.org

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The church must reconsider its treatment of LGBT persons, especially those who have been fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientations.

I was visiting missionary friends in Turkana, a remote, arid, and desolate region of Kenya, in the summer of 2001. My friends had asked me to help baptize 40 nomadic women at a distant outstation chapel, about a three-hour drive from the main mission over rocky terrain and river beds that pass for roads. These women were shepherds who tended their communal flock of goats. (The men remained at home to care for the animals.)

Our journey was nothing compared to that of the women and congregation, who traveled for two hours by foot for their baptismal Mass. We were delayed because our jeep overheated. The assembly had already been gathered for an hour and sang hymns while they waited for us.

More: TFr Brian Massingale, at USCatholic.org

LGBT Discrimination and the Catholic Church | Queering the Church

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In a notable contribution to a document on LGBT discrimination and belief for the UN Human Rights Commission,  Krzysztof Charamsa lays out all the ways in which the Catholic Church actively discriminates against LGBTI Catholics.  It’s not comfortable reading.


Krzysztof Charamsa (right) with partner Eduard

One of the key points in my own thinking about the Catholic Church and queer Catholics, came when I heard Charamsa speak at the 2019 conference of the European Forum of LGBT Christian Groups in Gdansk. Like many others, I’ve been delighted by the notable change in pastoral tone coming from the church, ever since Pope Francis took on the see of Rome. Charamsa’s talk in Gdansk however, was a sobering reminder that notwithstanding the changes in pastoral tone, core doctrines remain unchanged – and these can be extremely damaging, even dangerous, to the emotional, spiritual and even physical health of LGBT Catholics.

Source: LGBT Discrimination and the Catholic Church | Queering the Church

Fr James Martin: The Real Scandal

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If you’re looking for a Catholic priest who inspires people—and makes them laugh and think—James Martin, SJ, is your guy. At the Ignatian Solidarity Network’s annual conference, he’s greeted like a rock star by swarms of young Catholics who devour his books and remember him as Stephen Colbert’s “chaplain” on the Colbert Report. To say this is unusual is an understatement. Millennials are leaving the church in droves, turned off in part by an institution that has made opposition to same-sex marriage central to Catholic identity in the public square.

This generation of Catholics remains inspired by the church’s rich social justice tradition, has no patience for the culture wars, and is disgusted that their religious leaders are often perceived to be fighting against the human rights of gay people. When I heard the news last Friday that the seminary at Catholic University of America canceled a scheduled talk from Martin because a network of Catholic right attack dogs launched an ugly campaign against him, I cringed. The already-thin thread barely connecting these young Catholics to the institutional church just got thinner. Self-inflicted wounds are hard to heal.

Source: The Real Scandal | Commonweal Magazine

Two Australian bishops say Catholics can vote ‘yes’ on same-sex marriage – La Croix International

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Both bishops observe that this is not a survey on Church (sacramental) marriage but on civil marriage, marriage according to the law of the State. The question has no impact on church practices nor on our freedom of religion.
Bishop Vincent Long, of Parramatta

Bishop Vincent Long of Parramatta and Bishop Bill Wright of Maitland-Newcastle have effectively removed any “Catholic” arguments against supporting marriage equality and stress the responsibility of Catholics to discern carefully in determining their “vote”.

Christians must be very confused about how their religious beliefs should influence their views on the current marriage equality survey, officially described in the ABS mail-out as “Your Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey”.

Some so-called Christian positions seem to suggest that there is an inherent Christian exclusion of the possibility of civil same-sex marriage. The most careful and authoritative Christian analyses to date may have come from separate pastoral…

More (behind a paywall) at:   La Croix International